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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said Monday he will veto the state budget put on his desk by Republican lawmakers, calling them irresponsible when it comes to spending priorities and tax cuts.

“Rather than matching the dreams and aspirations of our people, this budget is short-sighted and small-minded,” Cooper said at an Executive Mansion news conference. “It lacks the vision that our state demands at this pivotal time of growth and change.”

GOP legislative leaders vowed a quick override - a very likely result given Republicans hold large majorities and have been unified in budget votes so far. A handful of Democrats have voted for the budget, too.

They ignored Cooper’s pitch of a Hail Mary pass in which he said he’d sign a compromise measure of the budget bill in another form if legislators met his demands. But his conditions would force them to sidetrack longstanding policy initiatives for lower income taxes, targeted teacher pay raises and expanded taxpayer-funded scholarships for K-12 students to attend private school.

“Those changes could be made and voted on in minutes, but they would have a lasting positive effect for years,” Cooper said.

But House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger repeated their arguments that Cooper rejected a two-year budget that contained several ideas that the governor wanted in the budget, including tax cuts for the middle class and several hundred million dollars for Hurricane Matthew relief, government building repairs and reserves for the next recession or disaster.

“Gov. Cooper has broken some of his biggest promises to the voters, and they will hold him accountable,” Berger and Moore said in a statement. “We will too, by quickly overriding his veto.” Cooper said the actual veto would occur Monday.

The fight over the two-year spending plan marks the latest clash between Cooper, who narrowly won election in November over Gov. Pat McCrory, and the Republican-dominated legislature. The legislature overturned Cooper’s four previous vetoes since taking office in January.

GOP legislators also acted weeks before Cooper took office to erode his powers and requiring his Cabinet secretaries to undergo Senate confirmation. Cooper has sued to contest those laws, with mixed results.

Teacher pay raises in the GOP budget increase 9.6 percent on average over two years, according to legislative leaders. Cooper had sought at least 10 percent over two years. His office and fellow Democrats also have complained that the most veteran teachers would get only a $300 raise and $385 annual bonuses in the budget. First-year teachers, whose base salaries in recent years have increased to $35,000, wouldn’t get more.

The Republican plan “doesn’t even come close to what I had proposed for teacher pay,” Cooper said, surrounded by members of the North Carolina Association of Educators, the state’s largest teacher lobbying group and a longtime Cooper ally. Instead, Republicans invest money in expanding a growing array of bonuses for teachers based on student performance or increased responsibilities.

The Republican budget, should it become law, would reduce in 2019 the individual income tax rate from 5.499 percent to 5.25 percent and the corporate income tax from 3 percent to 2.5 percent. Standard deductions also would increase. A change in the tax break for children starting 2018 also should benefit low-income families more.

But Cooper complains the tax break would again benefit the wealthy and corporations. Some of his demands would derail the one-rate system that Republicans first passed with their 2013 tax overhaul.

Cooper said there were some positive items in the budget, including more money for pre-kindergarten for at-risk 4-year-olds and expanded economic incentives he sought and designed to recruit a company to the state that Moore said last week could create over 8,000 jobs.

If the veto is overridden, Cooper said, “we’ll have to work with this budget, take what we can from it and work to fight another battle on another day,” he said.

Monday’s anticipated action by Cooper would be the second time in state history a governor has vetoed a budget. The other time happened in 2011, when Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue’s veto was overridden by Republicans.

The veto announcement could set the stage for the General Assembly to adjourn its annual work session by this weekend.